“While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others.
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Rick Warren
“A second barrier to total surrender is our pride. We don’t want to admit that we’re just creatures and not in charge of everything. It is the oldest temptation: “You’ll be like God!”11 That desire — to have complete control — is the cause of so much stress in our lives. Life is a struggle, but what most people don’t realize is that our struggle, like Jacob’s, is really a struggle with God! We want to be God, and there’s no way we are going to win that struggle.”
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Rick Warren
“Today we often feel we must “get away” from our daily routine in order to worship God, but that is only because we haven’t learned to practice his presence all the time. Brother Lawrence found it easy to worship God through the common tasks of life; he didn’t have to go away for special spiritual retreats.”
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Rick Warren
“His plan involves far more than the few decades you will spend on this planet. It’s more than “the opportunity of a lifetime”; God offers you an opportunity beyond your lifetime. The Bible says, “[God’s] plans endure forever; his purposes last eternally.”
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Rick Warren
“Work becomes worship when you dedicate it to God and perform it with an awareness of his presence.”
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Rick Warren
“You can use your time to build bridges or walls.The latter is not only unChristlike, it limits impact & creates loneliness.”
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Rick Warren
“In Eden, worship was not an event to attend, but a perpetual attitude.”
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Rick Warren
“God is not a cruel slave driver or a bully who uses brute force to coerce us into submission. He doesn’t try to break our will, but woos us to himself so that we might offer ourselves freely to him. God is a lover and a liberator, and surrendering to him brings freedom, not bondage. When we completely surrender ourselves to Jesus, we discover that he is not a tyrant, but a savior; not a boss, but a brother; not a dictator, but a friend.”
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Rick Warren
“Everybody eventually surrenders to something or someone. If not to God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts, or ego. You were designed to worship God — and if you fail to worship him, you will create other things (idols) to give your life to. You are free to choose what you surrender to, but you are not free from the consequences of that choice. E. Stanley Jones said, “If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos.”
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Rick Warren
“We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.”
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Rick Warren
“While life on earth offers many choices, eternity offers only two: heaven or hell. Your relationship to God on earth will determine your relationship to him in eternity.”
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Rick Warren
“Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. You will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who don’t know their purpose try to do too much — and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict.”
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Rick Warren
“In God’s eyes, the greatest heroes of the faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity.”
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Rick Warren
“Nothing matters more than knowing God’s purposes for your life, and nothing can compensate for not knowing them — not success, wealth, fame, or pleasure. Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless.”
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Rick Warren
“Many people are driven by materialism. Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal of their lives. This drive to always want more is based on the misconceptions that having more will make me more happy, more important, and more secure, but all three ideas are untrue. Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions.”
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Rick Warren
